Radio Frequency Identification facilitates easy traceability and trackability of individuals or items. If exploited RFID could prove as a boon but owing to its stellar cost of implementation and other nuances attached, it has not picked up the way it was expected to.

Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) the technology that facilitates easy traceability and trackability of individuals or items has been around for more than half a century but lacked the sheen to magnetize users. If exploited by supply chain, retail, manufacturing, pharmaceutical and aviation verticals it could prove as a boon for them but owing to its stellar cost of implementation and other nuances RFID has not pick up the way it was expected to.

RFID dates back to the early 1940's when it was initially adopted by the British Air Force to track the movement of its fighter planes. Since then RFID has metamorphosed in size and technology a great deal. Commercial usage of RFID kicked off a decade or so ago and interestingly it was the farmers and agriculturists lobby of US and European nations who emerged as the early adopters of the technology along with supply chain organizations.

RFID helps store data of commodities on the move on a microchip the size of a grain of sand. Radio waves are used to automatically transmit this data. An RFID system consists of an antenna and a transceiver, which reads the radio frequency and transfers the information to a processing device (reader) and a transponder, or RF tag, which contains the information to be transmitted.

Indian scenario
Thanks to the late technology adoption practices followed by Indians, RFID has not unfurled its wings to the fullest. It is only the big supply chain organizations that have embraced RFID as a useful tool for minimizing losses due to theft in transportation of merchandise from godown to shop shelves.

The high prices also act as a deterrent towards RFID adoption in the country. Quipped Saket Kapur of Delhi-based system integration firm Green Vision, "Indians are very conservative in terms of spending. More often than not customers judge the product from its price tag rather than scrutinizing its core competency and features. However, in order to be competitive in the global arena Indian enterprises will have to shed their inhibitions about RFID adoption."

According to a lobby of solution providing partners, they advocate late adoption of RFID as it averts the chances of carrying the burden of legacy system. Divesh Shah, Director-Business Management and Operations, Sun Client Solutions, thinks that adoption level of RFID will grow as soon as people start seeing business value in it. He said, "The ultimate drivers of RFID adoption are higher return on investment (RoI), companies could significantly reduce shrinkage in the number of merchandise lost during transit. Also large retailers could do away with the necessity of multi-location warehouses by utilizing RFID to monitor the stock for speedy replenishments."

Prospects
Currently, supply chain management is grasping the torch of RFID propagation and riding the bandwagon with retailing sector competing for the next position. Both these sectors are drawing stimulation from much hyped RFID adoption by global retail chain Wal-Mart.

Verticals, which have high potential to go in for RFID implementation are manufacturing, FMCG, pharmaceuticals, aerospace, logistics, public libraries, defense, toll roads and courier and cargo companies. RFID could be effectively used for the tracking of confidential government and defense documents as well. Harsh Marwah, CEO, Delhi-based Silicon Comnet asserted, "RFID is not restricted to any specific vertical as such but the deployment could be done where volumes are high and there is a need for manual intervention."

D. Chandrashekhar, Head-Technology and Services, PC Solutions added, "There is a great opportunity for RFID in enterprise sector. Enterprises could use RFID tags for tagging laptops of their employees to track the movement of confidential data stored in them. The technology could also be used for inventory management."

Types of RFID Tags

Active Tags: Embedded battery of about two to four watts, these tags have a read range up to 250 meter in open air. They are like mini-computers with a rooted chip for storing real-time information. Active RFID tags can send data at pre-designated intervals or at certain locations. Passive Tags: These tags do not require any power source as they use inductive coupling to transfer energy from one circuit to another by means of mutual inductances between the two circuits. Their read range is between 0 to 5 meters. These are primarily used for storing only information and can therefore are suitable for the retail sector. Passive tags can send data only when they are in close proximity of the RFID reader. Semi-passive tags: Battery usage is optional and their read range is up to 20 meters.

Deployment-reverse methodology
Unlike any other technology where the benefits of it are assessed and realized after implementation RFID works the other way round. For any enterprise planning to go for RFID implementation it is of paramount importance that they first start the process with a small pilot project.

TS Ranjarajan, Head- RFID Solutions, Tata Consultancy Services advised, "Customer in coordination with SI partner should prepare a proof of concept to ascertain impact of RFID on their overall business. In such situations, case study of successful implementations plays a pivotal role." Somesh Ghosh, Director, Network Solutions seconded, "In the absence of a clear roadmap companies fail to evaluate the RFID opportunities and rely on a trial and error approach leading to negative business impact. The vital question that enterprises need to answer is 'how can we use RFID for the benefit of our business?' So, a reverse methodology-determining the objective and then the medium-can prove to be more beneficial for RFID implementation."

New business stream for SIs
Solution providers should start exploring the applications side of RFID as to what kind of solutions they could weave around forklifting clients existing in IT infrastructure.

Basically SI's could look at RFID from two perspectives where one involves adopting the technology as a revenue enhancement stream while the other outlook would be of embracing it as a full-fledged business.

The major benefits for SI's who want to try their hands at RFID according to Shah, "Would come from backend IT integration."

Chandrashekhar of PC Solutions has already gotten into dialogues with major technology partners to gather knowledge on RFID implementation.

Vivek Sharma, VP and Director – India Design Center, ST Microelectronics said, "Pilot projects with visibility to common public and solutions for mass usage can help popularize the technology. Apprehension on privacy issues should be addressed in mass media. Price support and application customization with local system integrator will also go a long way in popularizing RFID."

Future of RFID
According to researches at the Lemelsen Center, MIT, RFID is the 10th most innovative technology of the past 25 years and industry is gung-ho about its future. Industry analysts expect RFID to grow by 47 percent and reach $2 billion worldwide by the year 2008.

Anjali Choudhary

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